Abstract
In response to COVID-19, schools across the United States closed in early 2020; many did not fully reopen until late 2021. Although regular testing of asymptomatic students, teachers, and staff can reduce transmission risks, few school systems consistently used proactive testing to safeguard return to classrooms. Socioeconomically diverse public school districts might vary testing levels across campuses to ensure fair, effective use of limited resources. We describe a test allocation approach to reduce overall infections and disparities across school districts. Using a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in schools fit to data from a large metropolitan school district in Texas, we reduced incidence between the highest and lowest risk schools from a 5.6-fold difference under proportional test allocation to 1.8-fold difference under our optimized test allocation. This approach provides a roadmap to help school districts deploy proactive testing and mitigate risks of future SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogen threats.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 501-510 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Emerging Infectious Diseases |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 2023 |
Funding
This work was supported by grant no. U01IP001136 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, grant no. NIH-R01-AI151176 from the National Institutes of Health, grant no. 17STQAC00001-04-00US from the Department of Homeland Security, and a generous donation from Tito’s Handmade Vodka. The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the funding institutions.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Microbiology (medical)
- Infectious Diseases
- Epidemiology
